One of the most vital ingredients to putting on an event, is the Marshalling - making sure participants are on the correct route and offering assistance when in need.  Often just offering support makes a huge difference.

The folks behind the Two Oceans Trail Run put out a request for help amongst the trail running community, with a bribe of a guaranteed entry for TMC (a good move, as those entires sold out in 20mins!)  I snapped up my entry for TMC along with a spot on the mountain for the morning of the 22nd April.

Prior to the race, we were invited to run the route as a recce, so we knew what the runner would be in for, as well as to find the spot assigned to us.

On the morning, we met at 6am for a briefing and to get t-shirts (the all important item!) and coffee.  By 7am as the sun rose, I was trekkiing my way up to my designated point. Approximately 4km from the finish for both routes.

The 10km race started at 7:30, and less than an hour later the first runners came past.  Speedily at first, then slower and then walking.  A generally jovial bunch who greeted me with "Thanks Marshall" (how many times I've said that myself at races).  By 9:15 the sweeper came past and stopped to chat for a bit, letting her 'wards' continue on and then running to catch up, giving herself a bit of fartlek training.

I had hardly had time to get a packet of M&M's into me (thanks to the Goody Bags), when Deon Middlekoop came blazing past, heading up the 20km route. 

The longer route had apparently been doing a fair amount of climbing already, so when they saw that my arrow was pointing up and not down, I got a lot of the same comments:

"No, really, Up? You must be joking"
"Ok, you can turn your arrow the right way, now, joke's over"
"NO! Not MORE uphill!"
"This is just childish!"

I even had one threat of: "I don't know you, but I want to throw you with my bottle!"

I could only smile and hope that they believed me when I said it was a short climb.  My smile was actually frozen to my face for the first couple of hours - autumn is most definitely here already!

The fun and laughter subsided as fewer runners came past, and those that did were walking and not particularly amused. Eventually I sms'd 'head office' to ask how far back the sweeper was, to which I received no answer.  Half an hour later no one had come by, so I called HO, only to be told that the sweeper had left the route early, and that I could pack up and come down.

What's the point of a sweeper if they don't complete the whole route!?
Not only did it leave us Marshall's waiting about for nothing, but I hope no one was left stranded in the forest without markers to follow!  It left a really bad taste in my mouth, after the rest of the day having been so succesful.

One thing I must rememeber for next time, is to make sure I know exactly how far it is from my point to the end of the race.  Telling people "I think it's about 3kays" is not very helpful, and I know how annoying it is when Marshalls are not fully informed.

All in all it was good fun, except for the last hour.  I'll do it again, but next time take a camping chair!